BL Premium reports that dazed and shocked residents of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) are still reeling from the anarchy that has reduced much of the province, including the Durban metro and the provincial capital Pietermaritzburg to rubble in the past few days.
They woke up on Wednesday to face another stark reality, namely that milk, bread and other basic foodstuffs have become scarce. With reports circulating in local communities of mobs and sinister prowlers in cars without registration plates, of an increasing number of fires being started, and water pipes and electricity substations being sabotaged, anxious people swamped the entrances of the few intact grocery outlets spared destruction. Most customers were turned away empty-handed after standing in queues for several hours. The lucky few were restricted to 16 items each. This because almost everything had been looted, with cupboards and refrigerators in the shops empty. Medicine is also in short supply, and petrol pumps are running dry. With millions of jobs across eThekwini, Pietermaritzburg and KZN lost and food supplies running out at a frightening rate, fresh produce is no longer on anyone’s mind. “Despair and anxiety are setting in with the realisation that this is not a temporary problem, that the entire food supply chain has been destroyed, and that it will take a very long time to restore it in any significant way. The crisis is going to deepen disastrously as the looted food runs out rapidly and the numbers of the desperately hungry shoot up exponentially,” said Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Palesa Phili. He is co-ordinating a relief strategy with a range of suppliers and distributors,
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mary Papayya at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
- Read too, Food supply to 675,000 people cut off after Durban food bank ransacked, at GroundUp
- And also, Livestock starvation looms as deliveries of feed come to halt, at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page